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47-525: BCRC may refer to: British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia , a non-governmental organization devoted to the care and emigration of refugees from Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939 Berks County Residential Center , an immigration detention center in Pennsylvania Blackwater, Crouch, Roach and Colne Estuaries Marine Conservation Zone (BCRC MCZ), Essex, England British Cave Rescue Council ,

94-632: A British stockbroker, spent three weeks in Czechoslovakia in December 1938 and January 1939 and drew up a list of children, mostly Sudetenland refugees, both Jewish and German, needing to leave Czechoslovakia due to the threat to their parents by the Nazis. It was Trevor Chadwick , a British schoolteacher, and Czech politician Anonine Sum, who asserted that Jewishness was the characteristic that most endangered children, whatever their place of origin. Chadwick became

141-638: A French seaport. His plan to get all of them out on a merchant ship failed because of tightening immigration controls by the Vichy government, but about 400 of the soldiers later escaped by boat to Spain. Waitstill returned to Boston, disillusioned about the state of the world and apparently wishing to become only a Unitarian clergyman again, although he was a popular speaker and accepted jobs to work in Europe and Cairo after his resignation from his parish in 1944. He later became pastor of several different churches, including

188-683: A Jewish emigration organization. Margaret Layton was the secretary of the BCRC in London. British diplomat Robert J. Stopford in the British Legation was the official liaison of the BCRC, especially useful in managing relations with the German occupiers to get exit visas for refugees. The Gestapo's Karl Bömelburg was Stopford's and BRCR's liaison with the Germans and their source for the all-important exit documents. He

235-723: A coordinating body for cave rescue organisations in the British Isles Baltimore Cancer Research Center, a former name of the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center Beef Cattle Research Council, a body funded by the Canadian Beef Check-Off Agency British Columbia Railway Company, a former name of BC Rail Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

282-454: A donation of 80,000 pounds collected by the Lord Mayor's Appeal. The new organization started slowly. The initial priority of BCRC was to help Social Democrats who had fled Sudenten when Germany took over the region. Doreen Warriner , a British college professor, came to Prague on 13 September 1938. She was unaffiliated with any organization and had a small amount of money she had raised. At

329-601: A week later. On 30 August the couple boarded the RMS Queen Mary to return to the United States. World War II began on 1 September. On 23 May 1940, less than nine months after the Sharps' return to the United States, Unitarian President Frederick May Eliot summoned Sharp to his office and persuaded him to return to Europe. His wife, Martha, was reluctant to leave their children again but decided to go with him. The Unitarians gave

376-519: Is uncertain. A later accounting attributed humanitarian organizations with facilitating the emigration of 12,000 refugees from Czechoslovakia to the United Kingdom in 1938 until the end of 1939. Many of the Czechs who had taken refuge in several different European countries were not admitted to Britain until after the beginning of World War II on 1 September 1939 and the demise of the BCRC. The composition of

423-764: The Unitarian Service Committee , an American organization, began operating in Czechoslovakia in 1939. Waitstill and Martha Sharp were the Unitarian representatives. Two of the most important financial and political supporters of the BCRC were the News Observer newspaper fund and the British Labour Party . At first, the priority of the humanitarian organizations in Czechoslovakia was to provide humanitarian assistance to refugees but they turned toward evacuating vulnerable refugees in 1938 and early 1939 as

470-500: The 13th of June, 1928, he married Martha Ingham Dickie in Rye, New Hampshire , the daughter of James Ingham and Alice Whalen, both immigrants from England who settled in Rhode Island . The ceremony was presided over by his father. A social worker involved with local internationalist and peace groups, Martha remained his ministry partner throughout his outreach and rescue work in Europe during

517-512: The AUA had a close relationship with the prominent Masaryk family. Dexter and Wood found a dire situation in Czechoslovakia. There were more than 200,000 refugees in the country: Jews , communists , and anti-Nazi refugees from the Sudetenland, Austria, and Germany. They were in immediate need of material assistance and also needed to emigrate from Czechoslovakia to escape the danger of persecution due to

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564-505: The BCRC enabled 3,500 refugees to resettle in Britain. Many of the refugees exited Czechoslovakia and journeyed to Britain on forged or false documents supplied them by Warriner and her associates. The working environment for the BCRC worsened after the Germans invaded most of what remained of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939 and established a puppet state . Warriner led BCRC until 24 April 1939 when she learned that she would soon be arrested by

611-447: The BCRC functioned in Czechoslovakia from September 1938 until mid-August 1939. World War II began on 1 September 1939. The BCRC was an umbrella and coordinating organization with cooperative ties to many other humanitarian organizations, national and international, in Czechoslovakia. By one accounting, about 12,000 refugees were able to leave Czechoslovakia, many of them financed or helped by BCRC. The United Kingdom accepted about 12,000 of

658-650: The BCRC in London to leave Czechoslovakia. The BCRC was replaced and absorbed on 21 July 1939 by the Czech Refugee Trust Fund which was controlled by the British government, ending many of the free-wheeling (and often illegal under Czech and German laws) activities of the humanitarian community in Czechoslovakia. On 25 July the Germans ordered all foreign refugee workers to leave the country. Wellington departed Prague on 3 August 1939, one month before Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. The most storied activity of

705-446: The BCRC to be leftist German men, especially those from the Sudetenland who were in danger of being imprisoned or deported. The German refugees were housed in camps outside Prague. A distinction was drawn between the Germans who were considered "political" refugees and the Jews who were considered "economic" refugees and thus were of lesser priority. Often dubbed as "conscience money" because of

752-411: The BCRC was the kindertransport: the evacuation of 669 refugee children out of Czechoslovakia and their resettlement with British families in the United Kingdom. Most of the children were Jewish and none of them were accompanied by their parents. The resettlement was initially seen as temporary, only until the immediate threat to their families in Czechoslovakia was resolved. Instead, World War II began and

799-698: The British sacrifice of Czechoslovakia in the Munich Agreement, the British government granted four million pounds to the Czech government to support and resettle the refugees in countries which would accept them. 500,000 pounds of the grant were earmarked to resettle Jewish refugees in Mandatory Palestine . With the German takeover in March 1939, the remaining balance was retrieved by Britain to be used for resettlement of Czech refugees. From October 1938 to March 1939,

846-520: The German Gestapo and left the country. Beatrice Wellington, a Canadian Quaker, arrived in Czechoslovakia in fall 1938 and quickly became known for her ability to acquire false documents for endangered refugees. After Warriner's departure on 24 April, Wellington led the BCRC's coalition of humanitarian organizations in Prague. The situation was increasingly dangerous and many humanitarian workers left

893-400: The Germans dismantled Czechoslovakia. A "grassroots transnational network of escape facilitated leaving Nazi-occupied Europe," in the words of Laura E. Brade. "This network connected Boston-based Unitarians, London-based socialists, and Prague-based Jewish social workers in a complex web of interfaith refugee assistance." In September 1938, the BCRC was created in Britain. It was financed with

940-471: The Germans. The Sharps continued with their plan, but the estrangement between Waitstill and Dexter was permanent. Martha focused on the difficult task of importing 12 tons of condensed and dried milk into France while Wainstill worked with Donald A. Lowrie , Varian Fry and others helping vulnerable refugees escape Vichy France. Wainstill spent three days in Marseilles orienting the inexperienced Fry on

987-541: The Gestapo for forging identification papers for the children. With the departure of Chadwick, Frantisec Ullmann and the Jewish Religious Community took charge of organizing the kindertransport. The eighth and last attempt to transport children out of Czechoslovakia was 1 September 1939 when 250 children waited without success at the Prague railway station for the train to depart. World War II began that day and

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1034-701: The Munich Agreement, which ceded to Germany the region of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland , the flow of refugees increased. Kristalnacht , the anti-Jewish riots in Germany on 9-10 November 1938, also stimulated the flight of refugees. In 1934, 29 non-governmental organizations were assisting refugees in Czechoslovakia. International humanitarian organizations also began to help. The American Friends Service Committee began helping German and Austrian refugees in 1936. The Jewish Immigrant Aid organization HICEM established an office in Prague in 1936. The predecessor to

1081-668: The Second World War. In his third year of law school, Sharp got to know Eugene Shippen, National Director of Religious Education for the American Unitarian Association (AUA), and minister of Second Church in Boston , and later became part-time director of religious education at Second Church. In 1933 he was ordained a Unitarian minister, and he became the pastor at a small church in Meadville, Pennsylvania . In April 1936, he

1128-479: The Sharps about 10,000 dollars to spend at their discretion. They arrived in Lisbon , Portugal on 20 June and from there journeyed onward through Spain to France. France surrendered to Nazi Germany on 22 June, but southern France was allowed to have a semi-independent government, called Vichy France . Portugal and Spain were neutral in the conflict, as was the United States at that time. Martha decided that her part of

1175-564: The Sharps attempted to cooperate with the Czech government on rescue and relief projects for refugees, but the uncontested German invasion of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939 ended that effort. Afterwards, Waitstill focused on relief aid to refugees while his wife focused on securing emigration of refugees to other countries. Sharp augmented his budget by clever but sometimes illegal currency manipulations to supplement his resources. He dispensed funds to other organizations to feed refugees and also spent money to accumulate food, anticipating shortages in

1222-701: The Soviet Union and the United Kingdom were allies in the war against Germany. Waitstill Sharp Waitstill Hastings Sharp (1 May 1902 – 25 February 1983) was an American Unitarian minister who was involved in humanitarian and relief work in Czechoslovakia and southern Europe in 1939 and 1940, just before and during World War II . With his wife, Martha , he provided relief aid to refugees, many of them Jewish, fleeing from Nazi Germany and countries under Nazi control and assisted people in danger of persecution to flee Czechoslovakia and France and resettle in

1269-630: The United States and elsewhere. In 2005, Wainstill and Martha were named by Yad Vashem as Righteous among the Nations , the second and third of five Americans to receive this honor. Sharp was born in Boston on May 1, 1902, son of Grace Hastings and naturalist, author, and professor Dallas Lore Sharp . Sharp graduated from Boston University with an undergraduate degree in Economics and English in 1924, from Harvard Law School with an LL.B. in 1926, and with an M.A. from Harvard University in 1931. On

1316-519: The United States, arriving in New York City on 5 October. Martha did not make it back to the U.S. until 23 December 1940. She had collected 27 refugee children and 10 adults and brought them to the U.S. with her. Hearkening back to his Czechoslovakian experience, Waitstill, during his time in France, had taken up the plight of about 1,000 Czech soldiers and their families stranded and interned at Agde ,

1363-467: The borders were closed. The children probably died in a German concentration camp . A number of humanitarian organizations and individuals collaborated with the BCRC in Czechoslovakia. These included Quakers Tessa and Jean Rowntree and Mary Penman; Unitarians E. Rosalind Lee and H. J. McLachlan, the afore-mentioned Americans, Waitstill and Martha Sharp; and the Czech Marie Schmolka of HICEM,

1410-546: The children remained in Britain for the remainder of the war and, in most cases, as British citizens thereafter. The kindertransport refers only to those children who were evacuated without parents. The kindertransport was necessary because the British were more lenient in permitting child refugees to enter the country than adult refugees. The parents agreed to be separated from their children because they could not obtain exit permits from Czechoslovakia or permission to be resettled in Britain or other countries. Nicholas Winton ,

1457-460: The country. Wellington was arrested and questioned at length by the Gestapo on 14 and 15 April. Despite that experience, she did not join the exodus of humanitarian workers from Czechoslovakia. All BCRC staff except Wellington and Trevor Chadwick returned to Britain by 9 May. Wellington was left alone in the office in Prague. When Wellington took over the BCRC, funds were running short and plans in Britain were afoot to abolish it. Wellington, however,

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1504-434: The end of November she was asked to be the BCRC representative in Czechoslovakia and she became the leader and a source of funding for the international humanitarian organizations in Czechoslovakia. In November 1938, the number of registered refugees in Czechoslovakia was 92,000. An additional 150,000, mostly Jews, were unregistered, fearing that registering might make them targets. The most threatened refugees were believed by

1551-407: The flow of refugees increased. Kristalnacht , the anti-Jewish riots in Germany on 9-10 November 1938, further stimulated the flight of Jews. In November 1938 the American Unitarian Association (AUA) sent its Director of Social Relations Robert Dexter to Czechoslovakia on a fact-finding mission. He was accompanied by Richard Wood, a Quaker. The Unitarian movement was strong in Czechoslovakia and

1598-426: The growing influence of Nazi Germany (which would occupy Czechoslovakia in March 1939). The Unitarians gathered $ 41,000 for a mission but had trouble finding a representative willing to go to Czechoslovakia. Waitstill Sharp agreed after 17 candidates had turned down the job. Leaving their two young children behind in the United States, Waitstill and his wife Martha arrived in Prague on 23 February 1939. Initially

1645-570: The head of the kindertransport program of the BCRC. He offered to evacuate 100 children per week if sponsors and homes for them in Britain or elsewhere could be found for them. Chadwick organized and accompanied the first kindertransport out of Czechoslovakia by air on 14 March 1939. He carried a message back to London about the dire humanitarian situation in Czechoslovakia from American Waitstill Sharp. He organized additional groups of children and accompanied them by railroad. Chadwick left Czechoslovakia quickly in early June 1939, probably to avoid arrest by

1692-1076: The ministry of a church in Davenport, Iowa . The couple, oft separated during and after the war, divorced in 1954. Waitstill remarried on June 24, 1957, in Chicago, Illinois to Monica Adlard Clark. His last ministry was in Petersham, Massachusetts from 1967 to 1972. He retired in 1972 and lived in Greenfield, Massachusetts thereafter, dying on February 25, 1983. His second wife, Monica, born in Saskatchewan , died on 12 November 2007 in Pacific Palisades, California , age 98. Waitstill and Martha Sharp had two children, Waitstill Hastings Jr. born in November 1931 and Martha Sharp Joukowsky , born in September 1936. Like many of

1739-428: The near future. Many refugee aid workers left Czechoslovakia shortly after the German take-over of 15 March 1939. The Sharps stayed and suffered, as did other foreigners in the country, from German harassment. On 13 April their office was searched and on 17 April the furniture in their office was thrown into the street. They changed locations but were closed down on 25 July. Waitstill left the country on 9 August; Martha

1786-461: The people engaged in similar activities in the lead-up and during World War II, Winstill Sharp never talked much about his experiences in Europe. His grandson, Artemis Joukowsky III , of Sherborn, Massachusetts , began collecting information about his grandparents in 1976 and persuaded Ken Burns to make a documentary film about them. The film, Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War , recounting

1833-633: The project was to import dried milk into southern France to help with a problem of malnutrition in French children, but on their arrival in France about 19 July, they received a shock. Waitstill's old friend, Unitarian official Robert Dexter (who had persuaded the Sharps to go to Czechoslovakia) notified him and other relief organizations in France that he opposed the milk plan and all other relief expenditures in Vichy France. Because of German influence, Dexter believed that humanitarian aid to French children would help

1880-657: The refugees (Jews were not tallied separately) was: 6,000 Czechoslovaks, 3,000 Sudeten Germans, 300 Czech minorities, 1,000 Reich Germans, 800 Austrians, and 800 unclassified persons. Most of the refugees remained in Britain, but 1,100 refugees emigrated to Canada, 250 families to Palestine, and 200 families to Sweden. Almost 400 emigrated to other parts of the British Empire, the United States, and South America. Those refugees who escaped Czechoslovakia without assistance from humanitarian organizations are estimated to have numbered 4,000 to 8,000. The Czech Refugee Trust Fund (CRTF)

1927-565: The refugees, including 669 children unaccompanied by their parents in what is called the kindertransport . Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party 's accession to power in Germany in 1933 led to the flight of 4,000 refugees, mostly communists or Jews, to Czechoslovakia. Most found homes in other countries. A trickle of refugees continued. At the time of the Munich Agreement (30 September 1938) 5,000 German and Austrian refugees were in Czechoslovakia. With

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1974-547: The techniques of the semi-clandestine life. Fry was in France to rescue intellectuals and artists, many of them Jews, fleeing the Nazis. In mid-September 1940, the two of them organized the escape of several prominent intellectuals and their wives: Heinrich and Golo Mann , Franz Werfel , and Lion Feuchtwanger . The refugees walked across the Pyrenees into Spain escorted by an American named Leon (Dick) Ball. (Ball later disappeared, fate unknown). Waitstill accompanied Feuchtwanger to

2021-540: The title BCRC . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=BCRC&oldid=1253709926 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia Headed by Doreen Warriner and, later, Beatrice Wellington ,

2068-514: Was appointed pastor at the Unitarian Church of Wellesley Hills in Wellesley, Massachusetts . The accession to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany in 1933 led to the flight of refugees, mostly Social Democrats , communists and Jews , to Czechoslovakia. With the Munich Agreement (September 1938) which ceded to Germany the region of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland ,

2115-543: Was created on 12 July 1939 by the British government to assist refugees from Czechoslovakia and to care for them in Britain until they could be resettled elsewhere. The Trust absorbed the BCRC and its 170 employees. The Trust existed until 1975. In January 1940, the Trust was accused of being "dominated by Communists, British and foreign." The British security agency, MI5 , investigated the Trust and continued its surveillance of it and its employees throughout World War II even though

2162-469: Was determined to obtain permission for some 500 women and children to depart Czechoslovakia. Almost daily, she turned up at the office of Gestapo official Karl Bömelburg requesting -- and in many cases receiving -- exit permits for the women and children on her list of vulnerable refugees. She was described as the only person who could help the "dangerous" refugee cases: "Czech democrats, political leaders, Jews, Catholics and Socialists." She resisted orders by

2209-432: Was forthcoming with exit documents for Jews as the Germans at the time were happy for Jews to leave while opposing the emigration of "political" refugees, which included many Jews. The American Consul-General in Prague, Irving N. Linnell, kept (against regulations) Waitstill Sharp's operating funds in his office safe to protect them from German confiscation. The numbers of refugees who succeeded in leaving Czechoslovakia

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